Popular Screen Temperature Control App f.lux Comes To Android

Popular pioneer of screen temperature control f.lux has finally made its way to Android. The anti-eyestrain app has been available to Windows, OS X and iOS users for years now. It’s variant for Google’s mobile OS, which had been in the pipeline for more than a few months, saw a soft release just three weeks ago, with promo codes being handed out to a handful of beta testers on the first day. The developers promised to bring the app to the Google Play Store soon after the soft release and they have delivered.

The function of the app, for those of you who are unaware, is to automatically control the screen temperature, making its color warmer or cooler based on the time of day, which the app determines using your location. Why would you need to have your smartphone’s screen do that?

Although nearly all smartphones available today can automatically adjust the brightness of their displays based on ambient light, they do not cater for the continued emission of blue light that, as researches have indicated, causes eyestrain after long hours of use, especially in milder indoor lighting, and makes it harder for one to sleep. By automatically switching the display to a warmer color in the evening, f.lux protects you from said blue light.

The app even allows you to choose a warmth that matches your indoor lighting. You can set a custom sleep schedule, select one of four warmth settings for Daytime Lighting, and one of five for both Sunset and Bedtime. There is even a Darkroom toggle that gives you red text against a black background for those late-night. The app does lack a homescreen widget for now, but seeing as how handy one could be, we could see said feature included in the final build.

The app is now available to download for free on the Play Store, but there’s a catch. In its current form, f.lux for Android is restricted to rooted devices, the same way its iOS counterpart has only been available to jailbroken users. If you don’t know what root access is, or simply never got around to rooting your Android device, this app is not for you, at least for now. Also, bare in mind that the app is still in its preview phase, which means you may have to plow through some bugs. Current known issues including flashing of the screen when an app is updated through Google Play and incompatibility with many devices in the Samsung Galaxy lineup.

The app is compatible with Android 4.0.3 and above, though the description on the Play Store page notes that it is likely to work with very few rooted KitKat devices. Most rooted Android 5.x (Lollipop) or 6.x (Marshmallow) devices should be able to run the app without problems. We tested the app without any problems on our rooted HTC One M8 running Android 6.0.

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